Why are Neurodivergents more sensitive?
There are a number of possible reasons for neurodivergent people experiencing emotions more intensely than others. Neurodivergent people often experience emotional lability, emotional impulsivity, and negative intent attribution.
We’re kind of an intense bunch sometimes.
But that’s okay, our intensity can be a positive thing too: Neurodivergents can be more creative and more passionate. That creativity and passion can drive us to take action where others may not, and our cognitive rigidity can give us a strong sense of morals. These features combined make us more susceptible to a variety of sensitivities, including justice sensitivity.
For example, in 2015, researchers found that participants with ADHD reported significantly higher justice sensitivity and greater perceptions of injustice than those without ADHD.
That same year, Schäfer & Kraneburg did an interesting study in search of a deeper understanding of why neurodivergents are prone to Justice Sensitivity, which is what I will discuss here.
What is Justice Sensitivity?
According to Baumert & Schmitt, “justice-sensitive people’s information processing should be guided in a way that raises their probability of experiencing injustice compared with less justice-sensitive people,” and their “emotional reactions to injustice should be stronger the more justice is endorsed as a fundamental value.”
In other words, people who experience high justice sensitivity have a stronger tendency to notice and identify wrongdoing and have more intense cognitive, emotional, and behavioural reactions to perceived injustice.
Additionally, “justice-sensitive people should ruminate longer and more intensively about experienced injustice than less justice-sensitive people” and should have an “inclination to restore justice and undo injustice”.
Those of us with justice sensitivity have a harder time letting these things go and have a strong desire to make right that which we feel is unfair or morally wrong.
Justice sensitivity has been categorized into four perspectives: victim, perpetrator. beneficiary, and observer. I’m going to focus on the last two and how they relate to ADHD and autism.
The beneficiary is someone who passively benefits from an act of injustice but does not personally commit the wrongdoing, and the observer is someone who witnesses an injustice as a bystander.
What does that have to do with neurodivergence?
As if we don’t have enough to deal with already, right? Well, putting a name on something we already experience isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can help us understand ourselves (or others in our lives) better, and to me, that is always a good thing.
Neurodivergents are more likely to experience justice sensitivity, in particular children, but adults as well.
“Kids with ADHD tend to have a strong sense of justice, sensitivity, and of course, energy. When they feel wronged, disempowered, or unheard, they can become quite mad.”
— Dr. Sharon Saline
An interesting study by Schäfer & Kraneburg demonstrated this through an online game that doled out raffle tickets to participants. The participants were told their tickets would be entered into a draw for a voucher that would allow them to purchase items in an electronic market.
The participants were led to believe that each of the players was another random participant; in reality they were computer players the researchers had set to make certain decisions in the game.
In each round, the allocators were to hand out 100 tickets to themselves and three other participants.
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